Sunday, November 22, 2009

Vladimir Nabokov's The Original of Laura

A novel in fragments...Vladimir Nabokov wished this rough draft of his final novel burned. But his heirs have decided otherwise.

The book consists of 138 hand-written index cards reproduced on every other page, with typeset text below. While the literary value isn't as high as his finished work, it is interesting to see the development of fragmented ideas and to imagine how they might have been arranged by Nabakov had he lived to finish the novel.